Iran launched a sweeping barrage of missiles and drones against six Gulf and Middle Eastern countries in the early hours of Sunday, July 12 — striking Qatar for the first time since April, hitting Oman for the first time during the conflict, and sustaining attacks against Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and the UAE in what was described by European journalists on the ground as scenes “at the same scale as the first days of the Iran war.”
The attack came hours after US Central Command announced it had struck approximately 140 Iranian military targets overnight — its largest single-day campaign since the ceasefire was signed — in response to Iran’s attack on a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left one Indian crew member missing.
What Happened Overnight Saturday Into Sunday
In scenes reminiscent of the first days of the US-Iran war, Iran unleashed waves of major, simultaneous missile and drone attacks across the Gulf on Sunday morning, targeting Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Oman, following another night of US airstrikes across southern Iran.
Iranian missiles and drones targeted several Gulf states, with the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain all reporting attacks. The barrage came hours after the United States Central Command said it had struck about 140 military targets across Iran, including missile and drone launch sites, naval assets and ammunition storage facilities.
Euronews journalists in Doha reported two waves of Iranian attacks within two hours on Sunday morning, observing several Iranian ballistic missile interceptions above the city, followed by loud booms and shockwaves across the capital. National emergency air raid alerts rang out twice on mobile phones in Qatar, the first at 05:36 local time and the second at 07:13.
In Qatar, the Ministry of Interior reported that three people, including one child, were injured by falling shrapnel. The IRGC claimed it targeted the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar — the largest US air base in the region — claiming it destroyed a command center and an aircraft maintenance facility, though neither Qatar nor the United States confirmed those specific damage claims.
Country by Country — What Was Hit
Kuwait said drone attacks damaged border posts and an offshore oil drilling rig. Qatar reported at least three injuries, including a child, from drone interceptions. Jordan said missiles had landed in the country but that no casualties were reported and damage was limited, while the UAE detected threats but said no missiles reached the country.
In Jordan, three Iranian missiles fell early Sunday morning across several locations inside the Kingdom. No casualties were reported, and the impact resulted only in minor material damage. The IRGC claimed it destroyed a command and control center and drone hangars at a US base in Jordan and targeted a US radar site in Kuwait.
The state-run Oman News Agency said drones targeted sites in the sultanate’s Musandam governorate — an exclave jutting into the Strait of Hormuz — a day after Oman and Iran had held talks on the strait and agreed to continue discussions.
The targeting of Oman was particularly striking. The sultanate had just hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi for talks on the Strait of Hormuz, and the two countries had agreed to hold further technical and political discussions. Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the first such move since the war began, calling Iran’s acts “irresponsible.”
The Most Dangerous Escalation — Striking the Mediator
The most diplomatically consequential aspect of Sunday’s barrage was the targeting of Qatar. Iran’s strikes on Qatar marked the first attacks on the key mediator since April. Tehran’s latest strikes marked a sharp escalation in pace and targets — in recent weeks, Iran had hit Kuwait and Bahrain while avoiding Qatar since early April and the UAE since early May.
The attack on Qatar targeted a state whose mediation efforts have been central to attempts to broker a ceasefire between the US and Iran. Doha has previously said it would not act as a mediator so long as it was under attack.
Qatar’s foreign ministry statement condemned the attacks and called them a “dangerous escalation” that would undermine diplomacy — a warning that carries specific operational weight: if Qatar withdraws from its mediating role, the principal channel through which the US and Iran have been communicating indirectly collapses. Pakistan remains an alternative mediator, but Qatar’s unique position — hosting both Al-Udeid Air Base and significant diplomatic relationships with Tehran — makes it irreplaceable in the current framework.
What the US Struck — and What It Claims to Have Achieved
The US said it struck about 140 Iranian military sites in the overnight aerial assault. US Central Command said it was seeking “to degrade” Iran’s “ability to attack commercial ships freely transiting” the strait.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote: “Iran made a poor choice. Now they pay.”
Tracking data shows traffic was reduced to a trickle Sunday as a familiar stalemate plays out, with Washington and Tehran making contradictory claims about the status of the Strait of Hormuz.
The trigger for the US strikes was Iran’s attack on a Cyprus-flagged container ship. According to the US military, the vessel suffered significant engine-room damage and one Indian civilian crew member was reported missing. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several vessels had ignored what it described as approved navigation routes through the strategic waterway.
Iran’s Messaging
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned that “the time for restraint is over” and that new US attacks “will result in even more devastating responses,” while insisting it alone must control the navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and declaring it closed for navigation on Sunday.
Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X: “The era of one-sided deals is OVER. We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
A new element has emerged: Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on February 28. The statement — his first public communication since the war began — is significant not for its substance but for its existence: it confirms he is functional enough to issue statements, even if not to appear in public.
The Brent Crude Response
Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 3.92% to $78.99 a barrel Sunday. US crude climbed 3.44% to $73.87 a barrel. The oil price response — significant but below the spike seen on July 8 — reflects a market that has now priced in recurring escalation cycles as a feature of the conflict rather than a shock.
The question facing mediators on Monday morning is whether Qatar will continue to host US-Iran diplomatic contacts after being struck, or whether the attack on Doha — coming on the eve of scheduled meetings between US envoys Witkoff and Kushner and Qatari officials — has fundamentally compromised the mediation framework that represents the last remaining diplomatic channel between the two sides.
